DC Comics found itself ahead of the superspy bandwagon without ever quite managing to hitch a ride on it.
I was attracted to Showcase 50 (May-June 1964) by its striking Carmine Infantino/Murphy Anderson cover, which showed a spotlighted, trench-coated secret agent firing an automatic as he parachuted down to a castle while gunfire just missed him.
The art inside was also by Infantino, but even at age 10 I could tell it somehow seemed just a little old-fashioned. Curious how an artistic style can evolve perceptibly in only a decade — or maybe it was just the clothing styles. Fedoras were forgotten by ’64.
The stories inside were from Danger Trail, a Cold War spy title that had lasted only five issues in 1950-51. I liked the hero’s name — King Faraday — even though in 1964, the obvious pun escaped me.
Queen for a Day, a radio and TV game show, was still on the air, but about to be cancelled. Its heyday had passed.
For the first reprinted story, DC picked Spy Train, a Robert Kanigher-penned adventure set on the Orient Express.
Note, however, that Spy Train was written for the unpublished Danger Trail 6, and therefore six years before Ian Fleming’s similar “murderous romantic intrigue aboard the Orient Express novel,” From Russia With Love.
Various superspy TV projects were already in the works, and The Man from UNCLE would premiere that September.
I-Spy was what DC called its new version of Danger Trail, but even that name would be co-opted by a 1965 NBC-TV series starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby.
In a brief, updated introduction, DC retroactively turned that reference to a children’s game, “I-Spy,” into Faraday’s code name.
Showcase 50 was on newsstands in March 1964, the same month as the first issue of Dell’s Espionage and six months before Gold Key published its one-shot John Steele, Secret Agent. Charlton Comics’ similar tough guy, Sarge Steel, appeared on newsstands in October. Sarge started out as a private eye, but became a “special agent” when the direction in which the Cold War winds were blowing became obvious.
Marvel and other companies would later launch successful comic book superspy spinoffs, but DC’s I-Spy died after only one more tryout issue. DC’s heroes — Superman, Batman, the Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and even Jimmy Olsen — would, however, go on to battle various SPECTRE-inspired baddies.
The irony is that back in 1963, DC had published a Showcase comic book adaptation of a new movie featuring some suspense novel character named “James Bond.”
But in fact King Faraday was there first, having been born in 1950, three years before Agent 007.
In retrospect, Fleming missed a bet by not having Bond fight SMERSH assassins on top of the Orient Express.
But you can’t think of everything, I guess.
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